


Trinkets in the Tower

by TheMetalVetruvian



Series: Same Verse Ambiguity [3]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Extremis Tony Stark, Fluff, Happy Tony Project, M/M, Mementos, Project Happy Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony is loved, Tony-centric, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 03:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6139737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMetalVetruvian/pseuds/TheMetalVetruvian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My entry for Project Happy Stark: Extremis Tony</p><p>Tony Stark finds it easy to feel like he is loved, if he looks in the right places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trinkets in the Tower

Tony has this box, a shoe box that once contained, you guessed it, shoes. Shoes that looked like the other hundred pairs that he has, the unique box of which he keeps with other shoe boxes in his closet. Unlike the others, it doesn’t actually contain shoes. It is also red, unlike the dull tan and brown that the others are. It’s not a good hiding place, that he knows for sure, but it wasn’t really meant for hiding anyway.

See, Tony has this box so he knows it’s there and when he’s feeling down he brings it out. Inside is only a handful of things: a hotdog wrapper, cheap cufflinks, a bottle cap, a faded photograph, and a tangled ball of wire jumpers. Memories are not pained, but savored each time he catches a glimpse inside and remembers that he, too, is loved. 

It’s a nice feeling that spreads through his chest, akin to the feeling he gets when Steve gives him the side eye that says _I am thinking devious thoughts_ or _I worry about you_. When Pepper kisses the top of his head, which rarely happens as he never gives her an opportunity, when he’s having a tough time. When he drinks cream soda on the beach in the scorching Californian heat, though he hasn’t done that in twenty years. When his mother smiles at him like he’s the sun that can fill the whole universe with his radiance. Or like a frustrated malfunction in the MIT labs, and Rhodey talks him through his overthought stump.

Nothing brought this on.

Tony was pulling a tie from the closet and it caught his attention in his periphery, like a flare in the fog. He pulls it out and spills through it’s contents, small in number but meaningful in his heart. Sometimes he forgets that he can look in the box and it makes his mind, which runs at _two hundred_ miles a minute, slow to a steady walk. The noise in his head slows to a gentle thrum that is as familiar and as comfortable as blood rushing in his head in the silence. The equations stop, the to-do lists are put on hold, the satellite twirling around and around his dizzy brain is forgotten. Sometimes he forgets that when he’s in _Go Go Go_ mode he can turn it off. His lips turn up at the edges, plopping down at the edge of the bed and thumbing the edges of the box. 

The door creaks open and Tony knows who it is without looking up, “Steve?” He barely makes it through the door, looking like he just got back from his run, which he likely had, “Will you come to California with me?” he says, already canceling his entire schedule for the next two days in his head.

He must have looked innocent to Steve, because he nods with a smile and throws his sweaty towel at him, “So long as you come with me in the shower,” and, high on adrenaline, gives Tony that _look_.

 

-

 

_Tap_. “Rhodey… Rhodey.” _Tap._ “Sugar bear, what is this?” **Thunk**.

“Don’t— Jesus, Tony, don’t just bang it.” He grabs the ball of circuitry from his hands, cradling it towards his chest to protect it, “It’s precious.”  
“It’s junk.” Says Tony pointedly, “Junk which was on my desk.” and snaps his Gerber Multi-Tool at it, the pliers clacking angrily. He, Tony Stark, age sixteen, is organized chaos. He does not need other’s unorganized chaos in his territory. 

“And if I told you DUM-E made it?” This gives him reason to pause, eyeing the wires as if reconsidering, so Rhodey pushes on, “As a symbol of our friendship.”

“You helped then, I see.” He sees DUM-E whirring next to his bed, hooked up to his charging port. He kneels down in front of his big shining hull and places a kiss next to where the arm meets the head, “Kisses from a proud father.”

Turning to Rhodey, he grins, holding his arms out, “You too, buddy. Kisses for the Three Musketeers!”

He keeps the wiring, the tangled mess reminding him of a friendship that will never be unraveled. Though it doesn’t have a proper shoebox to call home until much later.

 

-

 

Tony loves his mom. Maria Carbonell was a force to be reckoned with and not a day goes by where he does not think of her with a smile on his face. He remembers the fire in her eyes, the brown waves of her hair, her small mutterings in the morning before the coffee has been poured, the power behind the shroud she hid behind, and the adoring love she had for her son, her Anthony Edward Stark. 

Extremis makes it easier, remembering faces after twenty years of absence is hard, remembering voices is near impossible. There’s an old recording he has stored, one of her voice reading a portion of The Little Prince, which turns into a conversation with Howard. He assumes he fell asleep and the place was bugged. Still, he’s content with listening to twenty minutes of the story and restarting. He knows that, if he were to ever have kids, he would read them that book. And he would know twenty minutes of it by heart.

The photo is given to him when he goes to boarding school. He never put it in his wallet, because wallets can get stolen, but it sat comfortably in the edge of his vanity mirror. He wished he called his mother more while he was there. The times he did call though, her _I love you_ ’s rang in his ears like a song for days.

 

-

 

Pepper is hard to please, but when you’re on her good side once it’s hard to get off. Ten years ago, Pepper and Tony used to have business meetings after hours at Pepper’s house. They still have the meetings, minus Pepper’s house, minus the almost-sex, and minus the late hours as they both have people to go home to. But, when the company was going full speed ahead, when the weapons they were pushing had more collateral than moral and barreling towards FUBAR, and their meeting was just about to end with spilled coffee and torn-up R&D reports, Pepper sets a small box on the table.

“Open it.” She says, leaning back in the couch, feet propped up on the table and hair tussled over one shoulder. 

When he does, his eyebrows furrow, “I… don’t understand. This is a strange way to propose.”

She grabs the cufflinks nestled in the box, which are made from expensive metal but cheap ‘stone’, and rolls down his sleeves. Without a word, she pins one into place and then just looks. She has been acting strange for the last day and a half and Tony doesn’t know what to do, torn between voicing his confusion and waiting for her to say something, “I knew they would look good on you.”

He opens his mouth and then shuts it, debating what was wrong with his assistant, and trying to go at it in a delicate manner.

“They were my dads. He was a kind man”

His other hand immediately goes to take it off, “I, no, Pep, I can’t. I can’t wear these.”

Her hand lays over his, their bodies stilling and eyes locking. He sees something deep in there, something that scares him deep down into his core with it’s weight and responsibility. He sees her friendship and trust there, and her trust and respect in him in return. And they just know they are going to be okay, somehow. She places the other cufflink in his palm, and closes his hand.

 

-

 

Steve, for all his strengths, is weak when it comes to Tony. When Tony doesn’t eat, Steve takes it upon himself to buy him a hotdog from the hotdog cart down the block, and then shove it down his throat. He doesn’t, really, but he’ll stand there with this _look_ and Tony will feel bad. He tries to get Steve to stop, but he simply doesn’t. He waltzes in, bearing sustenance, and how can he turn that smile away? It becomes so frequent that Tony worries about his and Steve's health, Extremis and Super Soldier Serum aside. Just the smell of hotdogs makes him sick. 

When Steve comes in his office again, the third time that week with hotdogs in hand, Tony puts a hand up to stop anything he might say, “No more. I can’t. No human is supposed to eat that many hotdogs in a week, not even in a _month_ , Steve.”

“Well, I already brought it. So you might as well.” He places the hotdog in Tony’s hand, who grips it like he’s unsure what he’s going to do with it. Then, Tony proceeds to walk over to the trash bin.

“I’m throwing it away, we’re not eating it.” and it drops into the trash, “Sorry, Cap.”

“Here, have my spare,” Steve begins, opening the wrapper on his _spare_ hotdog.

“Steve, what are you doing?” Tony deadpans, hands folded in to his chest and looking at the hotdog like it cursed at his mother.

“Feeding you.”

“We can’t keep eating these.” 

Steve takes a single bite, then holds it out to Tony, it’s mustard and ketchup dripping onto the stylized foil, “And I can’t cook. So if you don’t want to eat hotdogs… you’ll have to cook for us instead.”

“Fine! I will, anything, but-,” Tony’s words stop as he takes the hotdog, eyes wide and stunned, “Did you… wait. What? Did you just try to trick me? Steve-”

“I mean, I’ve made friends at the hotdog cart, and they like to give me free ones, so if you _don’t_ want-“

“Fine. Fine, Steve! I get your point!” He leans against his desk, embarrassed as Steve fits his body to Tony’s and nuzzles a kiss to his cheek, “I’ll… cook. But you’d better be my Sous Chef! Every night, Rogers, promise m-“ He’s cut off as Steve’s lips find their way to his mouth, and they share a kiss that isn’t too pleasant due to the mustard but it’s the thought that counts.

“Thank you, Tony. I promise.” He kisses him once more before leaving.

Tony throws away the hotdog, but folds up the wrapper into a square and puts it in his pocket. He doesn’t care that the sauces will stain his dress clothes because Tony, for all his strengths, is weak when it comes to Steve.

 

-

 

Tony found it hard at first to deal with Extremis in public. With all the phones and satellites and technology, it was a mess trying to get a clear thought through. Now, it’s easier. Now, he has all the kinks worked out and Steve digs the gold under-suit anyway, which is a huge plus.

California is hot any time of the year, but this time in the summer it is exceptionally hot. The beach isn’t private, but not many people come to this area on the Californian coast. His parents used to own this strip, but Tony sold it three years ago for public use. Give it a few years with world of mouth and it’ll likely become a hotspot, like Mavericks. 

The beach with Steve is far better than any time he’s ever been before. Even if their cream soda is room temperature and store brand, it’s good and right and everything he hoped for. They’ve found a cozy spot in the sand to curl up next to each other, and if Tony’s lucky Steve will let him be an exhibitionist for five minutes while he rubs sunscreen all over his muscled back. 

“You okay?”

The question breaks him out of his train of thought, “Am I okay? You know what… yeah. I’m okay, I’m great, and I’m glad you came with me.” He turns on his side, getting comfortable by holding his head up with his hand, elbow buried in the towel, “I just needed to get away. Preferably with you.” He chatters, playing with the edge of Steve’s trunks.

Steve pulls him close by the shoulder, propped up by his other hand in the sand, and tastes the side of his neck just under his ear, “Mm, I knew it. Someone’s had too much sugar today.”

Tony laughs, rubbing his cheek on his shoulder as if that would get the saliva off of his neck, “I’m serious. Even with all the noise, it’s grounding me right here, in this moment, with you.” Extremis is a familiar hum, an ambiance, a tool that need not be used now, a bottle cap, a bundle of wires, an old photograph, hotdogs, and cufflinks. Steve’s hand tightens around him, sliding from his shoulder and down the side to his hip, and Tony can see the trust and happiness swell in his eyes.

“I love you too, Tony. Now drink your pop or it’ll get warm.”

Tony laughs dryly, bumping his shoulder into Steve’s as he picks up his flat cream soda and drinks, eyeing the two bottle caps in the sand.

Wedding rings made out of bottle caps seem risky to him, they’ll rust and break, but that doesn’t mean he won’t entertain the idea. Or seek alternatives. 

With a needy whine, he pushes his body into Steve’s and lays them flat in the sand, their soda falls, caking the earth and drying within minutes. His head rests on Steve’s reddening chest with Steve’s arms around him, listening to his heartbeat while his brain tells him everything is just fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated!
> 
> Shameless Plug>>> Posted on my Tumblr! (TheMetalVetruvian)


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